The GHC development team is pleased to announce the first alpha release of the 8.4.1 release. The usual release artifacts are available from https://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/8.4.1-alpha1 Note that this release drops compatibility with GCC 4.6 and earlier. While we generally try to place as few constraints on system toolchain as possible, this release depends upon the __atomic__ builtins provided by GCC 4.7 and later (see #14244). === Notes on release scheduling === The 8.4.1 release marks the first release where GHC will be adhering to its new, higher-cadence release schedule [1]. Under this new scheme, major releases will be made in 6-month intervals with interstitial minor releases as necessary. In order to minimize the likelihood of schedule slippage and to ensure adequate testing, each major release will be preceeded by a number of regular alpha releases. We will begin issuing these releases roughly three months before the final date of the major release and will issue roughly one every two weeks during this period. This high release cadence will allow us to quickly get fixes in to users hands and allow better feedback on the status of the release. GHC 8.4 is slated to be released in mid-February but, due to technical constraints, we are starting the alpha-release cycle a bit later than planned under the above schedule. For this reason, it would be greatly appreciated if users could put this alpha through its paces to make up for lost time. As always, do let us know if you encounter any trouble in the course of testing. Thanks for your help! Cheers, - Ben [1] https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/blog/2017-release-schedule